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A very common situation in a real game is when we are facing the opponent and we want to take the puck out of him/her and keep swimming forwards… yup that’s it, a Front Tackle.

During a game, sometimes most of us forget that our final goal is just to take the puck and swim as far as we can from the adversary, and often start pushing the puck in a “no matter how” way, or just try to show who is the strongest guy/girl in the pool… Well, here is a couple of simple tips to do clean and effective front tackles.

The principles are simple:

1- Aim the tackle in the direction you want to swim after doing the tackle.

2- Spread the energy of the clash by doing the tackle in a 20º to 50º degrees angle. When you tackle someone frontwards, and I mean in a 0º (zero degrees) angle, there’s a high chance of get hurt and/or hurt the opponent, depending who’s hand/wrist is stronger at that moment… remember we just want to take the puck and go away.

So let’s quickly check how we want to do the front tackle depending to wich side we want to go after doing it…

Aiming the Front Tackle to the right:

Position your body slightly to your left when facing the opponent and hold your stick inverted (top of your stick looking to the bottom of the pool), and when you think you are in the opponent’s “critical point” ( check “Holding the 1vs1” post ), do an explosive tackle by aiming the puck with the closest spot of your stick to your glove… it’s about not giving the adversary any chance to try to fight for the puck.

Aiming the Front Tackle to the left:

Position you body slightly to your right from the opponent, holding your stick in standard position, and again when you feel inside opponent’s critical point, smash the puck with the base of your stick (front edge)… It’s almost like a “Dummy” but without the puck.